Amid growing political tensions and a strained relationship between the U.S. and Canada, it appears some snowbirds are looking to flock elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Kyle Sparkman, managing director and head of Allianz Global Assistance Canada, a travel insurance company, tells 1130 NewsRadio that fewer and fewer Canadians are flying to the U.S.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a different animal for the travelling snowbird,\u201d said Sparkman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are choosing to travel to different locations,\u201d<\/p>\n
Instead, he lists the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Europe as other places people are going.<\/p>\n
Sparkman explains that his company\u2019s insurance policy sales records in January show travel to those nations increased by between 20 and 50 per cent.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, he says policies related to U.S. travel decreased year-over-year in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if snowbirds will go back. We are seeing people selling properties.\u201d<\/p>\n
Allianz expects Canadian travel to the U.S. to continue to falter this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s right in line with our expectation that U.S. travel was going to go down 20 to 28 per cent\u2026 and our policies are showing that, so Canadians are literally choosing to go to many other destinations. Mexico is getting quite a bit. Cuba continues to get quite a bit, but literally every Caribbean island that you look at has gone up in terms of policy sold year-over-year quite substantially,\u201d said Sparkman.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are choosing to go farther, I feel, to avoid some of the potential concerns about travelling closer to home.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says customers don\u2019t necessarily tell them why they\u2019re changing their plans, but a recent survey indicates there are both political and safety concerns, as well as disdain for the ongoing threats from the White House directed at Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do know the Canadian dollar has had an impact this year. So, in addition to geopolitical issues, some uncomfortable-ness about travelling to the United States just based on what\u2019s happening there politically, would all be expected drivers of why they\u2019re not going there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The change comes as some Canadian airlines, including WestJet and Air Transat, began cutting routes to the U.S. due to low demand.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at who is selling where, our airlines in Canada have chosen different destinations. They are re-routing where planes are going, and that\u2019s a big indicator of where people are choosing to fill planes. A lot of travel agents today are dealing with experiences and big invested vacations still, so some of those affluent travellers are choosing to go to different places where they can get worldly experiences, versus sun and fun type destinations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sparkman says brokers are also seeing more \u2018cancellation\u2019 coverage, as opposed to \u2018medical\u2019 coverage, which would indicate a person is staying in the U.S. for an extended period.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur survey said 20 per cent of people expected to go to the U.S. last year. This year, it\u2019s 12 per cent. That\u2019s a massive drop, and we expect that to continue for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n
As older Canadians may be looking to dodge the States, Sparkman says one demographic is still going.<\/p>\n
\u201cYounger Canadians are not delaying any trips to the U.S. and, in fact, we think they\u2019re travelling more\u2026 [but] I don\u2019t know if snowbirds will go back. We are seeing people selling properties. We are seeing them make choices they hadn\u2019t made in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
He thinks Canadians will return to some \u201clevel of normalcy\u201d when it comes to travelling to the U.S., but doesn\u2019t think it will be like it was before President Donald Trump began his second term in office.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be different. It will be interesting to see those things. I think if there are still concerns around safety or geopolitical issues, we will be in this kind of \u2018middle zone\u2019 for as long as those things continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sparkman foresees another trend emerging.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s fun to see the rest of the world. We\u2019ve seen a change in how travellers travel; they don\u2019t want to go to one place every year for three or four months. They\u2019d like to go to see different areas of the world. So: making your money and your life experiences go farther.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Amid growing political tensions and a strained relationship between the U.S. and Canada, it appears some snowbirds are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":496664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-496663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}